[OSM-newbies] any reason to keep old GPS traces?

[Alexandros Papadopoulos]

On 21 February 2012 16:00, Carsten Nielsen <list_reply at toensberg.dk> wrote:
>
>
> Den 21-02-2012 16:46, Andre Engels skrev:
>
>> It would also be information for later people editing. If you are
>> concerned about privacy, the preferred way of working I think is to
>> remove them, but then re-upload them anonymously.
>
> It is definitiley usefull to keep the GPS traces. I often use them to verfiy
> the alignment of the background image in Potlach.
> I have previously been able to change the privacy of my uploaded GPS traces,
> back and forth between Fully identifiable and private, I belive that is
> still possible so no need to remove and re upload the traces.

Thanks for the suggestion - I very recently realised how other
people's GPS traces can be used, so I would definitely like to keep
the trace data there for the OSM community to benefit.

On the other hand, I would quite like to properly disconnect them from
my name. Simply switching them to "private" does not address my main
concern: if law enforcement asks for my data, OSM probably has no
option but to hand it over without even telling me.

Seems to me that re-uploading from one or more anonymized profiles
(created using Tor etc) is the way forward. A bit labour intensive on
my part, but achieves both objectives:

1. Trace data is available to the OSM community
2. It's hard to link the traces to me.

Cheers,

Alex